


Nights in White Satin

by executrix



Category: Blakes7
Genre: AU, F/M, Pre-TWB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another honey-trap fic involving an ambitious young military officer--but a different one, this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nights in White Satin

NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN  
by Executrix

1\. NOW:  
It would take sublime egotism to think that a memory--any memory at all!--could be powerful enough to survive all the armaments of destruction that the Federation could deploy on a mind. But then, Servalan mused, some would call me, perhaps, the tiniest bit egotistical... Oh, not call me, of course. But the thought would be detectable in a simmering glance or a tightened jaw muscle.

2\. THEN:  
The paradox confronting the Freedom Party: a conspiracy must be secretive, but a rebellion must recruit. Luckily, some of them were willing to be martyrs, some even eager for martyrdom. A ragged band of rabble must take what they can get. To strain out everyone who might be an agent provocateur or a government spy--well, anyone might be. So any such review mechanism would reduce the roster below the breaking point.

No one was particularly suspicious of the petite, dark-haired, saucer-eyed data entry clerk from the Aquitar Project.

3\. NOW:  
Those times they had confronted each other. Servalan searched Blake's eyes, searched into and behind them, but never detected even the merest flicker of recognition. Professionally, she would have been glad to see that extra turn of the windlass, the additional suffering caused by a painful realization. Personally she would have wanted-expected!--to be unforgettable.

Anyway, now, she had racked her focus, blurring Blake. When entrapment worked so well on Blake, she recommended it to her occasional friend and unsuccessful rival. Servalan was sure that, before Sula Chesku had flown away from the ashes of Anna Grant, she had enjoyed every centimeter of Avon. Now Servalan intended to do the same.

Advantage Servalan once again. She would have both of them, rather like collecting a whole set of cigarette cards, including the rare ones. Blake was already in her album: blissfully unaware of who she was and what drew her to him--just as Avon had been ignorant of Anna. Avon, once collected, would be entirely conscious of who Servalan was and what her game was.

So Servalan didn't devote a lot of thought to Blake in his role as vanished sweetheart. He consumed far too much bandwidth as a menace to be eliminated. When she had a moment for a recreational thought, and there were no decorative staff officers in reach, she might think of Avon, and what he would be like. Somehow, she did not think that "sweet"--the adjective that recurred when, if, she did think of Blake--would be particularly apt.

4\. THEN:  
Would she have given him a second look, if he hadn't been an essential step in converting Major Servalan to Space Commander Servalan and eventually Supreme Commander Servalan? He was an Alpha, of course, so not entirely beyond the pale. But she rather tended to despise civilians. If it was a man's life in the army, the implication, somewhere back in her mind, was that it was a woman's life outside it. In her book, that was not a recommendation.

She didn't think that Blake was a particularly handsome man, although she did find his air of command appealing. His greenish-amber eyes were--steadfast. A quality more admirable, or at least useful, in a devoted lover than an enemy. She liked the strong line and decided arch of his golden-brown eyebrows, and the way his short upper lip turned upward.

Except for a brief, hideous period, when she was required to live in barracks and wear a uniform that was badly designed and atrociously produced by the lowest bidder, Servalan had always lived in tasteful settings among well-dressed people. The idea that someone would deliberately wear off-the-peg clothes, and make a hideous rumple even of them, was new and startling.

5\. THEN:  
That must have been when it was born, her taste for going undercover. Making her own investigations. Doing her own wetwork, or at least being there to give Travis the order.

She very nearly enjoyed seeing how the other half lived: the tiny flat, with only one cupboard to hold Jillian Maccove's small and drab wardrobe, the exotica of actually holding down that tedious job. Fancy, some people did that for a lifetime!

It was only natural for the new data entry clerk to try to meet people, to ask a lot of questions. That big bloke--is he married? No? Not married? Does he have a girlfriend? Oh, you are terrible, Zinnia! And you with a husband and three kids! Doesn't eat in the canteen--just has a sandwich at his desk? Hard worker, then. Do you think so, Zin? I wouldn't want to chase after him. No, I suppose you're right. New in town, only natural I'd pop by the local for a snifter on Friday night. Which one does he use--The Sun in Splendor or the Goat and Compasses? Oh, too bad. I do like a disco. But you say Roj is a bit shy, so I can see how he wouldn't. What team does he follow? Are his Mum and Dad still alive?

Put Blake in front of an audience, and he was magnetic. Perhaps he was a little near-sighted, and his nerves disappeared when the crowd merged into a soft, friendly blur. Put him in front of one data entry clerk, whom he suspected of no more sinister intention than upgrading herself with an Alpha husband, and he spent half the first evening staring into a pint of ESB.

Zinnia, who suspected Jillian of precisely that and nothing more, helped. She put Jillian in charge of organizing the Summer Solstice Party, so she would have to go back and forth between Engineering and Data Entry. Zinnia pushed her way into the last possible space on the 15:42 tram, nearly trampling Jillian, because she knew that Blake always took the 16:09.

Oh, it took ages. Jillian's ID card said Gamma-One, so Blake assumed she might very well be a virgin, saving herself for a white wedding. He refused to take advantage of his superior class status. But even with an Alpha girl, he would have waited--waited until he trusted that he felt something.

Everyone wants something, and you can seduce them (at least if you do not have their best interests at heart) by threatening or promising to give it to them, or by claiming that you have already and they ought to feel guilty for not noticing. At first, Servalan thought that the way in would be to teach him how to supplant Bran Foster, but she realized that Blake was not particularly personally ambitious. Then she realized that Blake was tired of being viewed in a representative capacity. He was desperately eager to be cared about personally.

Say this for him, he wasn't one for indiscreet pillow talk. But once he made a few quiet inquiries about her opinions and sympathies, and with due attempt to protect her from the worst of the danger, he allowed her to develop a political consciousness and get more and more involved in his work. It felt wonderful to him, not to be alone.

 

6\. THEN:  
The first time, she wore pink flannel pajamas and a charm bracelet clanking with mementoes of Jillian's invented life. As she correctly surmised, that nearly broke his heart. The next time, he watched her face avidly as she opened the mauve ribbon on the striped cardboard box. Inside were a gown and peignoir made of slick, cheap white satin, trimmed with lace that she knew would fall apart the first time it was washed.

"Go and put it on, love," he said. "I want to see you in it. And out of it."

He would kiss her over and over, breaking the kiss and starting again. She never worked out quite what the significance of that was. Even after she bought a tartan robe for him to wear, he always came out of the shower wrapped in one towel around his waist, one draped over his shoulders, a third to dry his hair. It drove her spare.

7\. NOW:  
Well, he didn't remember, and that was that. Perhaps, if she ever got the chance to kill him personally, she'd display all the documentation and tell him. Or perhaps not--so often, one spoiled a perfectly good shot by gloating.

 _Were things so much simpler then,  
Or has time rewritten every line?  
If we had the chance to do it all again,  
Tell me--would we? Could we?_

 _Memories can be beautiful, and yet,  
What is too painful to remember,  
We simply must choose to forget.   
But it's the laughter that we will remember  
Each time we remember  
The way we were, the way we were._


End file.
